One World's Waste

Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky. And from them poured, as it had since the beginning of recorded history, not rain, but tentacles.

Though the hues varied, each tentacle was of the same color as the clouds and sky from which they reached. They varied widely in thickness, though none had more than a foot in diameter. They stretched, effortlessly, endlessly, down from the violet heavens, making almost no sound. Very few people watched these days. Children up late were often enthralled, and those that had forgotten to put their trash out could be seen rushing out their back doors, burdened with two more trash bags, hurriedly placing them in wide open spaces, and then rushing back inside.

Over the next half hour or so, the tentacles would do their work. With only a modicum of sound, and with extraordinary skill and agility, the long, writhing limbs of the sky would gather up any trash that was easily accessed, and haul it back up through the dancing clouds. It never came back down. No living being ever got taken, excepting perhaps insects who had, in the short period of time the trash was out, made their homes amongst the waste. It had been this way for as people had history.

No matter how much one strained their eyes, the source of these prehensile limbs could not be found. No mater what device was brought to bear, telescope, satellite, radar, small recording devices... Nothing seemed to be beyond the clouds, or even in the clouds. The tentacles were nimble. As were the clouds. Anyone who tried to fly through them found that both would simply part around the airborne interloper, leaving them in a clear circle of black night sky. Some suggested massing flying vehicles in the sky, but even more people shouted this down, afraid that the trash collecting phenomenon might stop.

So, despite the vastness of the world, and the conflicting views, opinions and governments of those upon it, all agreed: the night sky's secrets were to be for the heavens alone.

But just as time is said to heal all wounds, another constant seems to hold true: all things change. To the dismay of most, one night, at midnight, the purple clouds formed but did not dance. They fell away from us. A great, bright ring formed, immense, taking in almost the entire sky, and like an open drain, the clouds swirled and disappeared, into a terrifying colorless hole.

---

A month earlier, the Sval had discovered something new: doors. Not doors with which one moved from inside to outside in the traditional sense. Not doors that allow you to peek hungrily into refrigerators at night. No. Doors that let you peek out of your own frustratingly limited universe, and hungrily into the seemingly infinite space of someone else's.

Many of the Sval were upset by this new technology. The clouds had brought them raw material for as long as they could remember. In fact, it was likely the clouds that had brought the first matter to this plane of existence, thus bringing life to the place: the source of their very ancestors! For thousands of years raw matter had poured in regularly, allowing for the construction of new people, great structures, and amazing works of art. What folly to try and usurp the power of the sky borne tentacles: to try and move beyond the space the universe had provided them.

Unfortunately their leaders, older, ailing, and yearning for the new, for anything that might grant them more power, or more life, could not resist the allure of their new discovery: the tentacles could move between dimensions, and clearly reached across existence into myriad, mysterious, and perhaps miraculous realms. They had discovered the means to force open whatever door those purple presences used, and the would not wait to use it themselves.

When the day came, and the switch was flipped however, all were dismayed. Unlike the door to one's room, which when opened simply allows passage through, the doors between worlds do not limit or forewarn of differences in fundamental states of existence. Like a pressure imbalance in a submersible, instead of freedom, the opening of the door let loose an incredibly destructive force.

As their world was tearing apart, some could see through the bight ring in the sky the lighted cities of another world. Even as their own fell apart around them, many dare to hope that this neighboring world might have some means of helping them.

To be continued...